Crashing
by Kjaere Rowen
Summary: A short I made for Lyra Megindottir, a character I created to extend Avengers story lines and missions into new universes. Lyra is a celestial being, an elemental one, that fell to Earth and became stuck there. She stays with the humans, works for SHIELD, and lives a 'normal' agent like life before the supernatural side of her life comes crashing back to haunt her. /No pairings/


When she got up that morning she knew. Like a sudden grasp at air from the deepest sleep, she sat forward clutching her throat as if she had been choked. She knew she was in the wrong home, in the wrong town. She knew she was making a mistake. 5 months since she had abandoned SHIELD with Tony's help. 5 months of living a quiet, normal life by human standards in the empty state of Maine. Don't ask her how she had come to the conclusion that she needed to go, she'd never be able to tell you. Not then, and definitely not now. Whatever the dream meant, she needed to go. Everything in her screamed to run. But run where? Her only choice was New York, the only people she knew was there. Only people on this planet that she knew, lived in New York. There was Tony and Pepper, and even Steve. But then she would be facing SHIELD, who would immediately find her.

That day she spent packing. She crammed everything she could into the car while it was still light that morning. All her precious belongings and anything to want a token of in grocery bags, trash bags, and what ever storage bins where available. From the back of her white Subaru Outback it would seem like she was a hoarder. Before leaving town she even stopped by the bed and breakfast to say good bye to her employers. She wondered what they thought of her, a frantic mess that hugged them amidst her own chaos as she came, and then left.

She drove for maybe an hour after she paid her dues and good byes in the small town, the sun slowly setting in the sky, before she finally had calmed enough to call for arrangements. Taking her phone out of her pocket, she fumbled with it while she drove despite everyone's particular hate for this type of multitasking, and looked through her messages. Luckily for her, her fingers could click in the message faster than humans and she had her phones options memorized. She barely had to glance away from the road as she sped by faster than the speed limit allowed. It wasn't a minute later that he was calling her back.

"I'm on my way, I have maybe an hour or two, and I'm just heading down to the interstate now." She waited as he commented and questioned, she could tell he knew something was up. But she wasn't even sure what that was. "Everything is fine, I just- I need a place to stay while I get my own is all." She heard him accept it, knowing he would, and let him talk a moment. The road had started to wind in uneven ways, narrowing to where the shoulder was merely two feet of pavement between her and the grass.

"What the…" She murmured looking out her windshield at the sky. What had been clear skies was now the dark clouds that expanded the whole sky. "I coulda' swore- No! Sorry not you" She apologized to the other as she sat back in her seat. The leather creaked and she flicked her wrist to switch for the windshield wiper. First wipe was clearer view, second was a clear view of a darkening road.

Standing in the middle of the road was a black figure, inky black from head to toe. Throwing the still on-call phone to the side seat, filled with crap, she cranked the wheel. The car veered right, and she crashed down into the ditch. It maybe took a couple of minutes, but her car crashing into one, two, and then another tree felt like seconds. She didn't have enough time to shield herself, and as her head slammed forward it came into complete contact with the steering wheel before the airbag had time to blow at the first tree. She slowly lifted her head from the steering wheel, a little shaken. She could feel blood dripping down her face, but the more she moved the clearer she felt. She had to of blacked out, even for her quick healing there would be no way for the original bleeding to stop that fast.

On all sides she was surrounded, black creatures bearing teeth in a wicked smile as they all stepped closer to the car. She tried to push the door open, but she was pinned against another tree. She could hear him yelling through the receiver on her phone, but she didn't have time to answer. With her stuff crammed into her passenger side, she panicked.

She was stuck.

Taking a deep breath, she glared at them as they drew closer and sucked in a deep breath. "I don't know who, or what you are," she spat. "But if you think you're getting your hands on me you're dead wrong."

And with that she flung out her arms, light filling the car as she screamed out her frustration, the energy bursting out, and all she remembered was her own piercing white light.

She woke to someone shaking her.

Her voice raised over the side of a balcony overlooking the street. Empty with soft pools of yellowed light shining down on it. She couldn't sleep again, it being 3 am, another night of restless rolling around in her sheets. But this time she got up to lay on her balcony in her hammock she had gotten shortly after returning to New York and finding that she could no longer sleep peacefully through the nights. The hammock swayed gently, and let her arm roll out over the side. At some point her iPod had died, and she was now just drowning out her thoughts with the lullaby's her father taught her.

Ever since that night she felt hallowed out. She felt dulled, fuzzy, off. She kept replaying when she woke, but she only became more confused with every time. Scorch marks had marred the ground underneath her. When she was found, they found no trace of why she had even crashed. She wasn't sure why she had either. They told her it was a deer or another common animal. That it happened all the time. But she couldn't remember a single moment. Tony said he had called her, said she had screamed. Nothing to her.

She drowned out the memory of the EMT and the detective, constantly checking her sight, asking her to try again. She couldn't remember, she couldn't. It took a mass amount of convincing for them to leave her be, to understand she was okay. And really she was. Any injury sustained had healed in her unconsciousness. Yet her mind hadn't recovered. No amount of her music was able to tune out how off it had been at the scene of the accident, and nothing was strong enough to revive the memory. But when she woke, she burned. She burned restlessly inside herself, and it charred everything she touched when she lost control.

She groaned, rolling so that her arm lay lazily over her face blocking out the night. She could hear steps walking down the alley way, her mind awakening further in its paranoia to find out who it was.

She'd never be able to get to sleep like this.

_She was in the dark. There were trees, rocks, and a stream. She was running, surrounded, she couldn't get away fast enough. Clutched tightly to her chest in her arms was her book from home. Her real home. But something was different, it was glowing. Why was it glowing? She didn't know. She didn't have time as she was running for her life from creatures she had never had the likes of seeing before. What was happening?_

_She was surrounded as she leaped over another fallen tree. On the way down though she felt her foot slip off the edge of a rock, the sharp edge slicing into the side of her leg. She paused for a moment to get her bearings, and plunged forward again into the blackness of the forest. She could ignore the pain, she would continue on. Around her the shadows grew near, their wicked sneers jiving at her from the short distance. They were on her, she didn't have long._

_The book continued to grow heavy in her arms as she went on. She was out of energy, even the celestial power surging through her veins couldn't keep her going against them. Tramping through the creek as it wound in front of her again. Her blood was running down her leg enough to stain the water red, and she realized she was going to be cornered, that had to be it. A little ways further, weighed down with water, she broke through the trees. She hoped the opening would save her, that the light could stave them off._

_Where was her light?_

_But no, she burst through the opening to a cliff. Its jagged edges opening like the teeth of a beast to the monstrous waters below. And she was still surrounded._

_She hoped they would stay in the cover of the shadows under the tree line, but the moon wasn't on her side. Above her, a red stained moon loomed darkly, all light a blood red on any reflecting surface. And they sauntered out. Sneering, smiling with knowing. Cornered and defenseless. They had her, they had her…_

_It took some sort of epiphany to remember how stubborn she was. As they backed her to the cliff, she felt her heels stumble to the ledge. She looked behind her as rocks she kicked fell into the viscous waters that crashed against the earth. If they wanted her, if this was her choice, then they couldn't have her._

_And with that, she let herself fall back into the waters._

The next morning she felt her heart jolt and she sat up straight in her bed, sweat beading on her brow as she looked around the room. Her stomach was doing little flips, as if it were falling from large heights. The dream she had… it was unsettling. All night she felt as if she was being watched, as if someone was there. In the back of her mind she knew to wake up. But she couldn't.


End file.
